


Written In Sawdust

by SisterWine



Category: X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies), X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: Clever cupid, Covered in sawdust, Finding the perfect match for the man that doesn't need much, Furniture and design, Gen, How to invent and create your own love, M/M, Support your local business, Who needs powertools when you are the tool?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-19
Updated: 2019-07-19
Packaged: 2020-07-08 22:13:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,944
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19876909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SisterWine/pseuds/SisterWine
Summary: Disclaimer: I do not own Logan, Remy or Jean-Luc Lebeau. Marvel holds the rights to X-Men and all their likeness and additional characters. Dusty, however, is mine. I do not trade, sell, borrow without permission or claim anyone else's work to be mine. DO NOT steal. This is fiction. sisterwine75@hotmail.comSummary: Excellent craftsman Logan hires on a helper who was sent to help him find love as well as work with him.





	Written In Sawdust

A sigh as he wiped his dusty brow with the back of a hairy and dusty left arm, Logan carefully slid the large carving of a prowling tiger up onto the platform that sat just outside the shop door. He stood in the doorway and stared up at the overcast sky. Several heavy breaths and the distraction of watching the spotty Tuesday morning traffic pass by before his ears registered the ringing coming from the back office. Another sigh as he turned and trudged through the shoppe's showroom, through the sawdust covered workshop and back into the small and cluttered office he shared with his assistant, aptly named, Dusty. 

His nose wrinkled as he turned to look at the paperwork-covered desktop before he started lifting handfuls of papers up in attempt to find the source of the ringing. Finding the late model phone sitting in the middle of the desk, he picked up the black receiver and cleared his throat. "The Sharpened Claw." His voice was gruff as he barked the store's name into the phone and placed the receiver between his shoulder and ear as he removed his gloves. "Yea, that's me." He paused as the voice on the other end spoke. "Logan. What can I do for you?" The voice spoke again and Logan moved some more papers out of the way, on the desk so that he could write on his agenda pad. "You want a what?" Grabbing a pencil and flipping the page on his pad, he walked around to his chair and sat down to write. "An eagle in flight with an arrow in its talons." He repeated it as he wrote it down. "Sure. It's (563)555.0003. We ship anywhere in continental US and Canada." He finished writing and now tapped the tip of the pencil on the desktop out of boredom. "Yer where?" Logan sighed outwardly. "Yea, we can overnight it once completed. How soon do you need it?"

The electric sander that had been running nonstop since Logan picked up the phone, stopped and the operator of the device set it down on the edge of the table, next to their goggles, before making their way over to the office. Denim overalls shadowed with sawdust, a white thermal shirt rolled at the sleeves and a clear but dust-covered dust mask adorned the twenty-five-year-old as they made their way over to the office's mini fridge for a bottle of cold water. Sitting down on the forest green Naugahyde sofa, a gray, work-gloved hand reached up and pulled the face mask off and tossed it onto the cushion beside them. The fax machine beside the sofa buzzed and drew the sander's attention away from the bottle being opened. "New commission?"

Logan hung up the phone and sat back in his chair. "Yea, the guy wants it in three weeks and overnighted on the 25th." He watched Dusty drink three-fourths of the bottle of water before taking a breath. "How much you got left?"

"Almost done with Great Falls and then have to work on Denver and Sacramento. You?" Dusty sounded out of breath as she had been working tirelessly on the piece of an upright toad in a three-piece suit and monocle.

Nodding and motioning for her to grab the newly received fax, Logan stood and walked around to the front of the desk. "Let's push Denver to tomorrow and get a head start on this one. I just finished Philly. It's dryin' outside. Looks like it's gonna be another long night, kid."

Dusty groaned and let her head fall back until it touched the coolness of the wall behind her. "You're lucky I'm single and I like my work or I'd tell you to find another transplanted British assistant with nothing better to do." She smirked up at him and held out the schematics for the new commission to him. "Where's this one going?"

Logan looked at the drawing she handed him and added up the measurements in his head. "New Orleans." Walking over to the wall, beside the door, he tacked it up on the TO DO board before looking down at the COMPLETED basket that hung on the wall, just below it. Twelve pages curled over the black wire rim and had been sitting there for a week. "Did you call them and tell them their pieces are done?"

Lifting her head up and looking at the basket, she breathed out her slight frustration. "I did. A truck with a check will be here Saturday to drop off and pick them up." Dusty finished her bottle of water and let the empty bottle drop into the blue container, beside the fridge, before grabbing another cold bottle to take with her. "One for the road?" She held up a second bottle for him, before she closed the door. 

Turning around and glancing at the clock on the wall, above the sofa, Logan nodded and grabbed her wrist to pull her up, off of the sofa, before taking the offered bottle of water. "What do ya have left to do on Great Falls?" It was already a quarter to ten and they had been working feverishly since the early hour of 5.30. It was nearing their lunchtime but he wasn't willing to stop until her work was complete.

"Spit and polish before laying out to tan." She reached down and grabbed her mask, tossing her long chestnut braid back over her shoulder as it had fallen in front of her with a thud, as she bent over. Leading the way back to her station, Dusty reached for her dusting brush that hung on a hook, on the side of her workbench behind her, and turned to give Logan the full update on the piece. "So, I finished the feet this morning and the cuffs and pinstripes but, I will leave the face to you as I hate the monocle. The pockets of the trousers and jacket are finally done and the collar needs brushing out. And then a rubdown with the bartendre's best coconut oil." She smirked and gave a nod over her shoulder to the honey glaze coating and protectant container that sat on the worktable.

Logan nodded. "I'll get right on that, then. Why don't you call Ferguson and let him know his tiger is done."

"How big is the next project?" 

Logan handed her the paper he still held on to. "A table. He wants it carved, painted and under glass."

Dusty scoffed. "A table? He want a chair to go with it? Make it a set?"

Laughing casually, Logan shook his head. "Not unless you wanna carve it out yerself. Go call Ferguson. I'll get this done, then it's yer turn to buy lunch." He waved her back to the office and stared down at the half-done face of the smirking toad.

~~~~~~~

Dusty covered a yawn as she sat down in the folding chair next to Logan and accepted the bottle of Coors he had offered her. "You really need to get out more." The sun had fully set an hour prior and now, they sat on the rooftop of the shop and watched the stream of car lights run through the small town, fifty miles outside of Davenport. Clinking the two bottles together, she took a long deserved drink. 

Smirking and containing a laugh, Logan took a drink as he sat back in his chair. "Just haven't met the right one, yet." He scoffed at his own statement and then gave a sly glance over to her. "You should find someone, too, instead o' just lookin' for other people."

She laughed softly and shook her head. "It's not the way it works." She raised the bottle to her lips and took a breath. After another swallow, she sighed and stared up at the stars. "I put the fans on the toad whilst he dries so, by tomorrow, he should he crisp. How far'd you get with New Orleans?" 

Logan ignored her question. "How does 'it' work, exactly?" 

Dusty heard distant sirens of a firetruck, heading through town and turned her attention to the sounds, instead of answering his question. 

"Okay, have it your way." Logan took a long drink as his attention too, turned to the firetruck, now making it's way closer to their side of the town to extinguish the flames at a burger joint that had a grease fire from a faulty grill. "Sanded the surface, traced the outline he sent, now I'm just waitin' for the daylight. He said he'd be up here in a few days to see how everything's goin'. Sounds like the shaky type. How about talkin' to yer friend at the Paint Sprayer about a colour scheme?"

Dusty nodded. "Sure." Turning her head and looking at Logan's shadowed profile, she smirked. "So, what did this bloke sound like?"

Logan shrugged and swallowed his last mouthful. "Like a guy with absolutely no fun in his life. I ain't interested in him."

Nodding silently, Dusty finished her beer and placed it on the ground, beside her chair before lifting the lid and handing him another one from the red, medium-sized cooler that sat between them. "You know, this would work better if you were a little more open to the possibility. Besides, I thought you liked boring, hum-drum people." She raised an eyebrow and picked up another bottle for herself, closing the white lid on the cooler. 

Logan laughed. "Girl, I think you'd have better luck with the Dear Andy column. Save your hocus pocus for the next poor sap. Okay?" He winked slyly as he looked over at her.

Dusty turned in her chair to face him, curling her legs so that her boots dangled off of the edge of the chair. "Let me get this straight; you believe you have knives in your hands because of some experiment as well as the mutant genome but you don't believe there's also cupids running around? Logan, in a world of people that can make themselves small or go through walls or giant-size themselves and are pretty much human blueberries, you just refuse to believe in beings of love? Why did you hire me again?"

"For yer sun-shiny disposition." Logan didn't even try to admit he was joking but he knew she got the joke as she gave him a crooked look.

She blinked at him and rest her chin on her hand and her elbow on the thin metal arm of the folding chair. "My 'sun-shiny disposition' sees that you are bored, single and unhappy. Now, if I have to don the whole outfit, bow and arrow and all, just to prove my point, I will but, it works better if you do the deciding." She paused a moment to stare at him and then shrugged. "Besides, I'm allergic to feathers and it's really a hassle with when I get my bow caught in a wing."

Logan cleared his throat and stood up. "For now, what I decide, I'm goin' to bed. Long day tomorrow. Night, Squirt." Logan took another long sip and turned to head back inside via the door to the roof. The stairwell to the roof access was not much more than a small room, a stand alone structure with it's own steepled roof and heavy iron door they sometimes used after a long day, or to watch the sunrise, on rare occasions. Reaching his downstairs apartment, Logan turned on the small table lamp next to the door and moved to sit down on his maroon, plush two-seater sofa and finished his beer before turning on his small, out-of-date black and white television set and letting it talk to itself while he lounged and eventually fell asleep on the sofa.

Logan's apartment was nothing more than a large room with a small kitchen and a queen mattress and frame, on the far side of the room. His dresser had doubled as a television stand that stood in the middle of the room, along with the sofa. A ceiling fan on constant low speed swung lazily from the ceiling as it circulated the cool air. It was more or less clean of debris and litter and his plates and silverware consisted of mainly paper plates and plastic silverware as he saw no reason to have real china or utensils, since it was just him.

~~~~~~~

For early afternoon, a gentle breeze filtered in through both the front and back door, leaving a coolness in the large shoppe. Logan had just finished carving out the last bit of the eagle on the table when the door chime, a plate underneath the first step inside the shoppe, beeped to let him know someone had just walked in. He looked up at the same moment the sun had peered out from behind a dark cloud and poured it's brilliant light into the doorway, leaving the tall, thin man standing in shadow. "Can I help you with something?" Logan only glanced up at the figure and continued his work of sanding out the indent of the large bird in the middle of the table. When no answer came, Logan stopped his sanding and looked up to find the man still standing in the doorway but looking around the room. He repeated his question and placed the sanding block down on the table.

The man turned his head and watched the shorter man covered in sawdust dust off his hands and walk around the back of the table to greet him. "I spoke with a man yesterday about a table to be made." He was an older man with graying auburn hair and a dark, thin mustache. 

"That'd be me." Logan came to a stop and eyed the man's demeanour.

The man stood with his hands in the pockets of his freshly pressed gray suit and went back to scan the room, eyeing the various sculptures and sets Logan and Dusty had finished. "I wish to add a piece to the bill as well as to make sure you are doing quality work. They are for someone special." He did well to hide his Cajun tone but it seeped through with some words he said.

Logan sighed inwardly and cleared his throat to gain the man's attention. He turned and nodded over to the table he had been working on. "Table's over here. Just finished carvin' it out and now I'm sandin' it down. What's the other piece?" He could tell the man enjoyed his money as well as the aristocracy of his life. "All our pieces are hand carved, sanded and painted to the customer's specifications. We only use powertools on items with intricate details." 

Walking over to the table and bending over to look at the quality of work, the man "hmmed" but nodded, disregarding anything Logan was saying. "Fine, fine." He straightened and turned back to the smaller man, still standing where he had stopped. "The second piece is a chess table, out of marble, if possible." 

Logan nodded politely. "Marble." He repeated the word with deflation. He hated using marble for anything but he was willing to work with it if it meant keeping his customer happy. "Just the table or the pieces, too?" Logan did his best to hide his disappointment.

"The pieces I have for it are of obsidian and ivory, well over 100 years old. I just want the table." The man turned to look back down at the carving of the table. A buzz came from his gold-plated Timex on his right wrist and he silenced it with the button on the side before turning back to Logan. "Excellent work. I will have my solicitor send you the extra cheque for the chess table. Excuse me, I am needed elsewhere. Thank you." With that, he turned and gave Logan a slight nod as he brushed passed him and climbed into the back of a long white limo, diagonally parked outside.

Not moving from where he stood, Logan watched as the limo pulled out of the lot and drove away before he sighed heavily and turned to call Dusty over for the order additive but found she was already on her way over to see him. "New Orleans was just here and made a change to the order. Added a chess table. How ya comin' on the glass?" He nodded over the table he had just finished sanding.

Dusty brushed the front of her overalls off with her hands and retrieved the sketch from the bib pocket. "It's coming along swimmingly. Just finished the wings and chest feathers. I have to clean it up and then run and get the paints for it." She paused and looked up from the paper she had unfolded and raised an eyebrow at him. "A chess table?"

"Yea, out of marble. He's gonna send his runner over with a cheque for the difference." Logan closed his eyes and took a calm breath, thinking of the extra work and short time frame they had to work with.

Dusty folded the paper and replaced it to her bib pocket. "He does realise that marble is harder to work with than wood or stone, right?"

Nodding, Logan opened his eyes and turned to walk back to the office. "I'll see if Todd can lend a hand." One of the perks to owning custom furniture and carving shoppe was that he got to work with extraordinary people in all avenues of the trade. Todd was the best marble carver Logan had ever seen, as well as owed Logan a favour. Now was the time he had wanted to collect.

Continued.


End file.
